“How do you mean . . . ’lying down’?” asked Marise, not visualizing the scene.  “As though he were sick?”

“No, not a bit that way.  Not on his back, but on his face, looking over the edge of the ridge.  All strung up like a bow, his head down between his shoulders and shot forwards like a cat stalking something. I tell you, he made me think of a hunter when he thinks he sees a deer.  I thought probably he had.  I’ve seen a buck and some does up there lately.  Then he saw me and jumped up very quickly and came down past me.  I was going to say, just for the sake of saying something, ’Laying your plans for next deer-week?’ But as he went by and nodded, he looked at me with such an odd expression that I thought I’d better not.  The idea came to me that maybe ’Gene does poach and occasionally take a deer out of season.  Meat is so high it wouldn’t be surprising.  They have a pretty hard time scraping along.  I don’t know as I’d blame him if he did shoot a deer once in a while.

“Well, after I’d been on beyond and made my estimate on the popple, I came back that way.  And as I passed where he’d been lying, I thought, just for curiosity, I’d go up and see if I could see what he’d been looking at so hard.  I got up to the big beech where he’d been, and looked over.  And I got the surprise of my life.  He couldn’t have been looking at deer, for on the other side the cliff drops down sheer, and you look right off into air, across the valley.  I was so surprised I stood there, taken aback.  The afternoon train went up the valley while I stood there, staring.  It looked so tiny.  You’re really very high on those Rocks.  I noticed you could see your Cousin Hetty’s house from there, and the mill and the Powers house.  That looked like a child’s plaything, so little, under the big pine.  And just as I looked at that, I saw a man come out from the house, get on a horse, and ride away.”

“Why, that must have been Frank,” said Marise.  “He rides that roan mare of his as much as he drives her.”

“Yes, that’s what came into my mind when you spoke his name just now in connection with Nelly.  I hadn’t thought anything of it, before.”

There was a moment’s silence as they looked at each other.

“Oh, Neale!” said Marise, on a deep note.  “How awful!  You don’t suppose there is anything in his jealousy. . . .  Nelly is as inscrutable in her way as ’Gene.”

“Heavens! how should I know?  But my guess is that ’Gene is making a fool of himself for nothing.  Nelly doesn’t strike me as being the sort of woman to . . .”

“But Frank is awfully good-looking and dashing, and lots younger than ’Gene.  And Nelly is young too and perfectly stunning to look at.  And she’s not one of our native valley girls, you know.  It may seem very dull and cooped-up here, so far from town, and shops.  She may envy her sisters, still living back in West Adams with city life around them.”